Search for the Radiative Penguin Decays B+ -> rho+ gamma, B0 -> rho0 gamma, and B0 -> omega gamma

Abstract

A search for the decays B --> rho(770) gamma and B0 --> omega(782)gamma is performed on a sample of 211x10^6 Y(4S)->BBbar events collected by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- storage ring. No evidence for the decays is seen. We set the following limits on the individual branching fractions: BF(B --> rho+ gamma)<1.8 x 10^-6, BF(B --> rho0 gamma)<0.4 x 10^-6, and BF(B --> omega gamma)<1.0 x 10^-6 at the 90% confidence level (C.L.). We use the quark model to limit the combined branching fraction BFbar[B --> (rho/omega) gamma]<1.2 x 10^-6, from which we determine a constraint on the ratio of Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements |V_td|/|V_ts|.

7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letters and contributed to ICHEP04